Google to take on Apple with its own iPad rival

Pocket-lint/Danny Brogan - Google to take on Apple with its own iPad rival

Google is to go head to head against the likes of Apple and Amazon by launching its own range of tablets sources on the internet claim. The devices will bear Google's name much in the same way as the Google Nexus One did in the smartphone market. So does this really mean Google is to go it alone in its quest for tablet glory? Well yes and no.

Google themselves won't actually be providing the hardware for the tablets, with the likes of Samsung and Asus lined up to do the donkeywork. However, under the bonnet it will be all Google. Of course Google Android tablets are already available, but whereas the likes of the Motorola Xoom or LG Optimus Pad had their manufacturers own skin and personality ingrained in the device, these tablets will be Google branded and Google powered.

The series of Google tablets will be sold directly to consumers through an online store, though currently there's no word on when we might be seeing one of these bad boys.

It's a brave move by Google who failed to get the results it wanted when it tried this strategy in the smartphone market, something they put down to other Android phones being on par with their own Nexus One. Would this suggest Google has finally decided it can do a better job than the Android tablets currently available? It would appear so.

Eric Schmidt, president of Google hinted back in December that a Google tablet was on the cards and it now seems that road plan has kicked into overdrive.